Part 22 (1/2)

AMALRIC, one of the leaders in the crusade against the Albigenses, who, when his followers asked him how they were to distinguish heretics from Catholics, answered, ”Kill them all; G.o.d will know His own;” _d_.

1225.

AMALTHE'A, the goat that suckled Zeus, one of whose horns became the cornucopia--horn of plenty.

AMA'RA SINHA, a Hindu Buddhist, left a valuable thesaurus of Sanskrit words.

AMA'RI, MICHELE, an Italian patriot, born at Palermo, devoted a great part of his life to the history of Sicily, and took part in its emanc.i.p.ation; was an Orientalist as well; he is famous for throwing light on the true character of the Sicilian Vespers (1806-1889).

AMARYL'LIS, a shepherdess in one of Virgil's pastorals; any young rustic maiden.

AMA'SIA (25), a town in Asia Minor, once the capital of the kings of Pontus.

AMA'SIS, king of Egypt, originally a simple soldier, took part in an insurrection, dethroned the reigning monarch and a.s.sumed the crown, proved an able ruler, and cultivated alliances with Greece; reigned from 570 to 546 B.C.

AMA'TI, a celebrated family of violin-makers; Andrea and Niccolo, brothers, at Cremona, in the 16th and 17th centuries.

AMAt.i.tLAN (10), a town in Guatemala, the inhabitants of which are mainly engaged in the preparation of cochineal.

AMAUROSIS, a weakness or loss of vision, the cause of which was at one time unknown.

AMAZON, a river in S. America and the largest on the globe, its basin nearly equal in extent to the whole of Europe; traverses the continent at its greatest breadth, rises in the Andes about 50 m. from the Pacific, and after a course of 4000 m. falls by a delta into the Atlantic, its waters increased by an immense number of tributaries, 20 of which are above 1000 m. in length, one 2000 m., its mouth 200 m. wide; its current affects the ocean 150 m. out; is navigable 3000 m. up, and by steamers as far as the foot of the Andes.

AMAZONS, a fabulous race of female warriors, who had a queen of their own, and excluded all men from their community; to perpetuate the race, they cohabited with men of the neighbouring nations; slew all the male children they gave birth to, or sent them to their fathers; burnt off the right b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the females, that they might be able to wield the bow in war.

AMBa.s.sADOR, ”an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth”

(_Wotton_).

AMBER, a fossil resin, generally yellow and semi-transparent, derived, it is presumed, from certain extinct coniferous trees; becomes electric by friction, and gives name to electricity, the Greek word for it being _electron_; has been fished up for centuries in the Baltic, and is now used in varnishes and for tobacco pipes.

AMBERGER, a painter of Nurnberg in the 16th century, a disciple of Holbein, his princ.i.p.al work being the history of Joseph in twelve pictures.

AMBERGRIS, an ashy-coloured odorous substance used in perfumery, presumed to be a morbid fragment of the intestines of the spermaceti whale, being often found floating on the ocean which it frequents.

AMBERLEY, LORD, son of Lord John Russell, wrote an ”a.n.a.lysis of Religious Belief,” which, as merely sceptical, his father took steps to secure the suppression of, without success.